The Watercolourist Read Online Free PDF Page B

look up from their work, nor do they speak
to the ladies. Bianca constantly gets the feeling that she is being watched. But each time she turns around, the man nearby will be looking elsewhere and seems interested only in his pruning tool,
his axe, or the clutch of weeds he holds in his clenched fist, raising them to examine the naked roots. It feels like wandering in a forest full of Indians: eyes and blades everywhere. But this is
the only fear that the women allow themselves. Though, in fact, Minna is also afraid of insects, which is strange for a girl who has grown up in the countryside. She runs away from bumblebees,
horseflies and praying mantises.
    ‘They won’t harm you,’ Bianca says, picking up an insect in the palm of her hand to examine its big eyes before placing it back on a leaf, which it grips like a castaway at
sea. But the girl keeps far away, and stares in admiration at Miss, who isn’t afraid of anything. Maybe it is because she is English.
The English are strange
, Minna thinks.
    Insects, children, flowers: how limited Bianca’s new world is and yet, at the same time, how incredibly full of potential ideas. Insects and children: Pietro has the malicious insistence
of a hornet. Enrico, on the other hand, has the feeble blandness of a caterpillar that knows only its own mouth. The girls are like grasshoppers, green, lilac, baby blue, all eyes, never at a
standstill. Minna looks like a young beetle: the tiny, iridescent kind that never knows where to perch, and is capable only of short flights.
    Bianca sketches and captures specific moments, sensations, gestures and movements. She speaks the plants’ names out loud. She is drawn to the plants and flowers whose names she
doesn’t know. The estate at Brusuglio offers an unlimited variety of new species. There is the
Liquidambar
, rooted into the earth, and pointing to the sky as if it is an arrow. There
is the little green cloud, a
Sophora
. There is
Sassafras albidum
with leaves that look like gloved hands. There is the
Catalpa
tree, known as ‘the
hippopotamus’ because it is so large. And then there are the shrubs: the
Genista
, the
Coronilla
, the
Hamamelis
, with its dishevelled and fading flowers, and the
Mahonia
, which smells like honey. And then the plants with modern names like
Benthamia
or
Phlomis
, names which often sound too lofty in comparison to their humble
appearance.
    It doesn’t feel like work. It isn’t that different from her ardent childhood and adolescent pastime, except for the absence of the person dearest to her. A gracious but inadequate
group of strangers has taken his place. As a unit, they only make her long for her own family even more.

    Everyone in the household is very devout. A small parish church has been built near the estate by Carlo, Donna Clara’s deceased lover and the previous master of the house.
The pungent smell of its recent construction blends with the overpowering scent of incense. The priest, a burly old man with a kind face, entrusts the censer to a young altar boy. Bianca lets
herself become distracted by the trails of light blue smoke. She contemplates the Good Shepherd, who gazes out at everyone, one by one, from beside the apse. She feels surrounded by lambs. The
children sit in the second row with their governess. Pietro takes something out of his pocket and shows it to Enrico, covering it with his other hand like a shield, so his sisters cannot glimpse
it. Of course, they stretch out their necks to see and, in so doing, miss echoing the psalm. Their grandmother turns around from the front row with a threatening scowl. The girls fall back into
line and the object disappears into Pietro’s pocket once more. Enrico sighs. The children’s mother and father are two composed backs of solid mass.
    Bianca’s gaze wanders. Several old women sit in another row. Not many country folk could allow themselves the luxury of attending two services a day, morning and evening. Since Bianca